s0apgun Wrote:Yeah, I purchased FF7 yesterday since it was on sale but surprisingly it doesn't come with Japanese. Oh well.

I almost did the same thing. Luckily I have a habit of checking which languages it comes in beforehand. I was kind of surprised to see that they would not sell the game in it's original language :/

[s0apgun]

I read on reddit they don't sell it in Japan / Japanese version because then Square would have to give phone support or something for the game in Japan? Strange reason but I can see it being plausible.

Popped in real quick to some games to test (this is on a U.S. Steam account):

Rage
Fully localized audio and text

Bioshock Infinite
Fully localized audio and text (minus some menu options and in-game signs)

Serious Sam 3: BFE
Localized text but not audio

DmC: Devil May Cry
Has a Japanese option in Steam, but it doesn't appear to change anything

Darkness II
Localized text (minus some menu options and skill names) but not audio

These were all changed using the language option in each game's Properties menu in Steam.

I don't have Guild Wars 1, but Guild Wars 2 doesn't have any Japanese support at the moment as far as I know.

I have some other games I want to check but aren't installed, so I'll have more updates later.

Guild Wars 1 has a pretty neat feature where you can bind a language toggle key, and instantly toggle everything that's localized between two languages without going to a menu or waiting for any loading.

I wish GW2 had kept this feature.

[s0apgun]

MAN, I am almost tempted to buy Bioshock Infinite on steam now! I already beat it on the PS3 though :/

All the Duels of the planeswalker games(MTG) are completely text localized.

I just wanted to give my 2 cents and say that Borderlands 2 is amazing in Japanese. (I know its on the list already)

The only thing NOT in japanese is textures/posters and stuff in game, which lets be honest is fine.

You can go up to random NPC's and just keep chatting to them to hear them talk about the same subject over and over until you get it, you see how to use all your verbs because you have to read the mission log properly if you want to understand what to do, the voice acting is really great too.

I think I'm gonna play this game a lot!

Thank you, kov887 for all the useful information, and stratzvyda for your information. I'll update the top post accordingly in the next day or two.

worthy7, I agree. Borderlands2 is a great game to play in Japanese... as long as you know enough to find your way around the average game menu, there's no worries. The game exposes you to -tons- of Japanese (with subtitles, which I believe are on by default) but progress is pretty straightforward and there are other cues, so you won't get stuck just because you don't have 100% understanding.

I've been playing Borderlands2 a lot lately myself.
By the by, my Steam name is the same as my name here, so feel free to add me as a friend. Borderlands 2 especially is really meant to be played multiplayer, and I've heard rumors that there will be a multiplayer Skyrim (or Elder Scrolls anyway) later on.

Couldn't find anymore Japanese dubs in the games I own sadly, but here are some updates:

Witcher 2
Localized text, but not audio
note: I have the GOG version of this game, but the Steam store lists it as having Japanese support, so I assume it's the same

Spec Ops: the Line
Localized text but not audio

Dead Island
Steam Japanese option, but just crashes the game :/

Crysis Warhead
Steam Japanese option, but doesn't change anything

Metro 2033
Steam Japanese option, but no Japanese option in-game for either text or audio

I'm Eon_V on Steam, feel free to add me if you want. I have Borderlands 2 as well if people want to join up for coop or something, though my Japanese level is still pretty low haha.

s0apgun Wrote:MAN, I am almost tempted to buy Bioshock Infinite on steam now! I already beat it on the PS3 though :/

I'm sure it'll be fairly cheap by the time the big Steam Winter sale rolls around!

kov887 Wrote:I'm Eon_V on Steam, feel free to add me if you want. I have Borderlands 2 as well if people want to join up for coop or something, though my Japanese level is still pretty low haha.

Will do. (edit: would do, but steam denies that any player 'Eon_V' exists...)
I don't feel like Japanese level matters that much when it comes to gaming, really, but it might be nice to play with other learners just because playing with the general population it's hard to explain why you're such a slow reader or how you misunderstood a quest objective...

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Will do. (edit: would do, but steam denies that any player 'Eon_V' exists...)
I don't feel like Japanese level matters that much when it comes to gaming, really, but it might be nice to play with other learners just because playing with the general population it's hard to explain why you're such a slow reader or how you misunderstood a quest objective...

Oops, looks like I had my profile set to private. Should be fixed now, sorry about that! Added you Chris

kov887 Wrote:Oops, looks like I had my profile set to private. Should be fixed now, sorry about that! Added you Chris

ありがとうございました。

Ok, I updated the top post.

Josee Wrote:I bought Front Mission Evolved, and it doesn't come in Japanese. At least, I can't find a way to make it work in Japanese.

This appears to be the case. I bought it but could never make it run, but, I do not see a Japanese option in the game properties page.

stratzvyda Wrote:All the Duels of the planeswalker games(MTG) are completely text localized.

Are you sure? Only Magic 2014 is listed in the store as supporting Japanese, 2013 and earlier have no such note. I added 2014, but I'll wait for specific confirmation on other versions.

kov887, went through your lists and added a bunch of stuff. I didn't add anything for games that don't have Japanese. Your games that have a Japanese option that 'does nothing' (or crashes the game :o) are also not listed in the store as supporting Japanese, and ... well, I can't list all the games that -don't- support Japanese, that list is way too big.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Ok, I updated the top post.
Are you sure? Only Magic 2014 is listed in the store as supporting Japanese, 2013 and earlier have no such note. I added 2014, but I'll wait for specific confirmation on other versions.

Checked again for 2013 and it works, didn't know there were earlier versions on steam sorry about that. 2013 has japanese in the store page though it looks like its gone from 2012 so it's unlikely it has it.

Thanks for this thread. Just what I was looking for.

Just a heads-up, Recettear and Chantelise are on sale for the next 13 hours. I made sure to grab my copy!

Thanks, stratzvyda. I'll have to change that then (although I don't suppose anyone would buy the older version now? Hnh.)

You're welcome, netsplitter. Let us know if you find any other good Japanese language games! I can't possibly keep up with scanning the new titles, unfortunately.

Just updated the top post to add Resident Evil Revelations / Biohazard Revelations UE ;
the game's language was controlled by an in-game menu but it appeared to be complete support in the demo (excepting some menu item terms). The full version is huge, so I can't technically confirm the full version quite yet. However, it's on 50% off sale for the next 15 hours or so.

Resident Evil 5 also appears to support Japanese (judging by the store page) but isn't on sale and doesn't have a demo so I'm not able to confirm that at all.

Skullgirls has full Japanese text support. Voices are all English.

The King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition also has Japanese voices and full Japanese UI/Text support, same as Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition.

Just a friendly reminder for those considering buying some games to practice Japanese: Steam is currently having their summer sales event and a lot of games are heavily marked down.

E.g.
-Alan Wake
-Borderlands 2
-Bioshock Infinite
-The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
which all have Japanese subtitles and audio are between 5-15$ each.

As the thought of improving my Japanese while playing video games greatly appealed to me, I bought Bioshock Infinite & Borderlands 2. However, I have to admit that I haven't really figured out yet how to best tackle those games. Based on my first impressions it's actually not that easy to follow the story, so I'll have to put some more thought into it.

My main problems are:
-Speed: Most lines are only read once. If I don't understand a word or part of a sentence, I don't have time to re-read and get help in the form of a dictionary.
-Casual speech: I have a hard time grasping the meaning of the often casual speech, ironic remarks and banter. This isn't really surprising though as I've mainly encountered 'serious' writing so far, so I might as well start now.
-Lack of 'feedback': Somehow I miss the opportunity to check what I think is happening to what is _really_ happening. I've had a quick look at the localization files and the whole transcripts of the games are readily available in text form in both Japanese and English, so that might help. I haven't really figured out how to best use those resources though. Playing around a bit with the files it's also possible to have e.g. Japanese audio and English subtitles, so that might be worth a try.

Using video games to improve my overall comprehension, speed and listening seems very promising if done right and supplemented with enough effort. I'd be interested in hearing about the experiences of others!

Bioshock Infinite's story gets rather complex, especially towards the end. You'd better brush up your quantum mechanics vocabulary.

Borderlands 2 is choke-full of sarcastic, colloquial, smart-ass dialogues.

I'd say you haven't picked the best two games to start playing in Japanese :p. Perhaps a little bit of preparatory work ? You can you study the script a bit, look up some sentences, read the synopsis in english to make sense of the story ?

I'd suggest not trying to understand everything ; all it'll do is make you pause the game every 20 seconds. Try to get as much as you can, look up a few words every now and then if you really itch to do so, but try to just enjoy the games.

On a side note, Skyrim might be your best bet. You can have the pnjs repeat some lines and speak to them multiple time, and the scenario is ... well, let's say it's not the main focus of the game. You won't miss much by not understanding everything. But you can really have a good time immersing yourself in the side quests.

The VN Narcissu is now on Steam. It comes with Japanese and the English translations. You can switch between them in the game saves. Which means you can play the game in Japanese and switch over the your English translated game save if you don't understand a particular part. It's super easy and takes me about 4 seconds to switch from one to the other.
The steam download includes both Narcissu 1 and 2. They are pretty sad stories but they are very good. You should play Narcissu 2 first as it's a prequel.

Oh and I should mention it works for MAC and PC and it's FREE.

Linval Wrote:You'd better brush up your quantum mechanics vocabulary.

Upon reading this I was happily looking forward to the QM vocab as my own background actually is in physics. In fact the first book I ever tried to read in Japanese was the Japanese version of Feynman's 'Surely You're Joking', so I've had some exposure to technical vocabulary. Unfortunately, I hardly encountered any in Bioshock - did I miss something?

Linval Wrote:Borderlands 2 is choke-full of sarcastic, colloquial, smart-ass dialogues.

Well said, that's what I meant! I'd love to learn to understand that aspect of the language as well, so I guess it's a good match even though it might be a bit rough in the beginning. Partially due to the JLPT I've spent a lot of time studying the sober language. So now's a good time to start to strike a balance.

Thanks for the suggestions. I took the subtitle text files for both Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite and did some preprocessing until only the dialogues were left. I then ran those through cb's JapaneseTextAnalysisTool and generated a word frequency list. I then ran that one against my anki collection and did some manual cleansing of parsing artifacts and words I already knew. That left me with around 500 words that are new for me but occur several times in the games. I'll anki those!

I also played around a bit more with the subtitles files. From what I gather it's possible to have e.g. all the dialogue subtitles in Japanese while having the item descriptions in English. This might be helpful as I suck at reading katakana and in general just makes it much easier. Furthermore, I'm not overly interested in learning words like ショットガン so I feel like it might be a good trade-off.

Another thing I tried is 'merging' Japanese and English subtitles to have both at the same time. Example (just added the Japanese part):
Subtitles[0]=(Subtitle=(Speaker=\"Slate\",Subtitle=\"Corporal DeWitt proved his worth on the field that day. デュイット伍長はあの日、大いに活躍した。\"))
At first I had some encoding issues and got a lot of □'s. I did manage to resolve that, but then for some reason I don't really understand yet the timing of the subtitles got really messed up. Has anybody else had any experience messing with the subtitles?

Of course I also spent some time playing the actual game. After the initial struggles I'd say that I can follow the immediate story more or less. However, I still struggle to understand the bigger picture. After finishing the game I read up on the story and I really missed a lot of stuff. But that's fine with me as I wasn't really paying too much attention to it in the first place and it's not really required to enjoy the game. Now that I know the background story, I find it much easier to follow the game. I just went through the start again and feel like my understanding has skyrocketed. While this is certainly also partially due to self-deception, it really helps knowing the main actors, factions and game mechanics. Initially I always wondered who or what the hell ビガー　was. At least that won't bother me anymore.

Overall it feels like there's a lot of potential to using the subtitles scripts in order to build learning tools such as sub2srs. With regard to movie subtitles I always struggled to find both decent Japanese AND English ones. Here, that problem is solved and the lines are even cross-referenced perfectly. Maybe I'll have a look once the exams are over and see what I can come up with. Or maybe cb4960 comes up with another brilliant tool and beats me to it !

Back on topic: Has anyone had any success getting Portal 2 to display the Japanese translation of the dialogues? I know they are there because I've tracked down the files, but I don't see them in-game. I've set the game to Japanese and even re-downloaded the whole thing, but other than the menus everything remains in English.

hyvel Wrote:

Linval Wrote:You'd better brush up your quantum mechanics vocabulary.

Upon reading this I was happily looking forward to the QM vocab as my own background actually is in physics. In fact the first book I ever tried to read in Japanese was the Japanese version of Feynman's 'Surely You're Joking', so I've had some exposure to technical vocabulary. Unfortunately, I hardly encountered any in Bioshock - did I miss something?

Nope, it's lightly peppered throughout the game. I just wanted to point out that Infinite's story is more complex than many other games out there, so it would not have necessarily been my first choice . By the end of the game, you're right up Ken Levine's butt, but as Zero Punctuation puts is so beautifully, it's a very cozy butt with lots of conversational pieces.

Glad you were able to enjoy it though. I think it's a great game.

hyvel Wrote:However, I still struggle to understand the bigger picture.

That's perfectly normal, whatever language you play the game in.

hyvel Wrote:Back on topic: Has anyone had any success getting Portal 2 to display the Japanese translation of the dialogues? I know they are there because I've tracked down the files, but I don't see them in-game. I've set the game to Japanese and even re-downloaded the whole thing, but other than the menus everything remains in English.

I don't have access to my computer now so I can't tell you if that'll work, but have you tried setting steam itself in Japanese ?

Linval Wrote:have you tried setting steam itself in Japanese ?

Thanks for the suggestion, that did the trick!

However, after playing for some minutes, I feel that Portal 2 in Japanese doesn't work that well (as was to be expected). It takes some effort to follow Stephen Merchant's great voice acting. At the same time you have to hurry in order to read through the subtitles before they disappear. Pressing 'Esc' in order to buy some time as an emergency measure doesn't really work either as the subtitles become invisible then. Furthermore, sometimes you also have to play while all of this is happening. In my opinion, Portal 2 lives from its story, which unfortunately you can't really enjoy while playing it in this way.

Still, it's interesting to see how all the sarcastic banter is translated into Japanese.

PS: You really have a way with words, Linval!

Just checking in to say that Fable Anniversary has full Japanese support.

I don't think this has been mentioned yet, but Age of Empires 2 HD Edition as well as The Forgotten Expansion is fully in Japanese (voices & text). It's a great RTS game. Not to mention you can play as the Japanese too!

Might as well take advantage of the current Steam sale.